


and here we are as on a darkling plain...

by lesbians_and_puns



Series: Meta [3]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Analysis, Character Analysis, Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 04:10:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4946203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbians_and_puns/pseuds/lesbians_and_puns





	and here we are as on a darkling plain...

Laura’s caption for Episode 35 (aka the one where Danny dies) is “And here we are as on a darkling plain.” This is from a poem called “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, which is one of my favorite poems. Here’s the text:

> _The sea is calm tonight._  
>  _The tide is full, the moon lies fair_  
>  _Upon the straits; on the French coast the light_  
>  _Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,_  
>  _Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay._  
>  _Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!_  
>  _Only, from the long line of spray_  
>  _Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,_  
>  _Listen! you can hear the grating roar_  
>  _Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,_  
>  _At their return, up the high strand,_  
>  _Begin, and cease, and then again begin,_  
>  _With tremulous cadence slow, and bring_  
>  _The eternal note of sadness in._
> 
> _Sophocles long ago,_  
>  _Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought_  
>  _Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow_  
>  _Of human misery; we_  
>  _Find also in the sound a thought,_  
>  _Hearing it by this distant northern sea._
> 
> _The Sea of Faith_  
>  _Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore_  
>  _Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled._  
>  _But now I only hear_  
>  _Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,_  
>  _Retreating, to the breath,_  
>  _Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear_  
>  _And naked shingles of the world._
> 
> _Ah, love, let us be true_  
>  _To one another! for the world, which seems_  
>  _To lie before us like a land of dreams,_  
>  _So various, so beautiful, so new,_  
>  _Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,_  
>  _Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;_  
>  _And we are here as on a darkling plain_  
>  _Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,_  
>  _Where ignorant armies clash by night._

Okay, so here’s the thing. Arnold in this poem is depicting a transformation in perspective. The narrator sees the world, specifically the sea at night, as innocent and calming (”glimmering and vast,” “tranquil bay,” “sweet is the night-air”). However, a note of doubt or discomfort is quickly introduced - the sound of the waves on the rocks is a “grating” roar, and he notes that this beautiful and ceaseless movement has an “eternal note of sadness.”

The author then moves backwards in time, toward Sophocles. He notes that Sophocles saw in the ocean a parallel in its movement to the “ebb and flow of human misery” - note that if it ebbs and flows, calling it the flow “of human happiness” would have also been accurate. The emphasis on the misery of the human condition is an important one.

Finally, Arnold brings us to a new level of metaphor. The sea represents Faith, which once covered the world but now fades away. The language of this verse is so powerful - go back, read it again, drink it in. Faith is withdrawing with a long melancholy roar; it is retreating under the night. The vastness of the glimmering cliffs in the first stanza has lost its beauty; the edges are now dreary, and the pebbles are naked on the shore.

In the last stanza, Arnold summarizes the change in perspective. This dreamy world is an illusion, and does not actually have any certainty, any security, any love or joy or light. And, seeing this, the narrator feels like he is on a stretching expanse being darkened by night, and the faithless masses are clashing under this cover of darkness because there is no morality or light to guide them. But the beginning of this verse is the most telling - he says that lovers must be true to one another in the face of this darkness and confusion and faithlessness. Essentially, he is arguing that love and compassion for one another must take the place of faith in this absurd world.

 

* * *

 

 

Gorgeous poem, right? But how does it relate to Carmilla?

This poem is itself a representation of the way that Laura’s perspective has been forced into chaos over the course of this semester. She has to move from an idealized and beautiful version of the world where she "still know[s] how the story goes; good is triumphant and evil is vanquished” to one where her best friend dies for her, for her love for her, and it’s heroic but it doesn’t _matter_ because they’re still going to lose. That’s the place that Laura is in when this episode airs. The illusion of a beautiful and ordered world has shattered and Laura is left standing in its place, staring at the pieces, the naked shingles, scattered around her feet. She is finally beginning to understand why Carmilla would say that ethics are “a ridiculous game played by children who think they can impose order on an arbitrary universe,” because Danny _died for her_ , she did everything she was supposed to and it _didn’t matter_. The universe doesn’t play by the rules Laura wants it to.

Laura has finally moved to Carmilla’s absurdism. The universe is chaotic and meaningless and she finally understands that, but she also believes (as Carmilla does) that fighting for the person you love, that being true to that person, does make a difference. It might be an absurd goal but it is a goal and in the face of the meaningless of the universe, you need to create your own meaning. That is the point of absurdism, that is the philosophy Carmilla has taken for herself and that is the belief that Laura finds herself clutching to because, even with her faith in the goodness and meaning of the universe shattered, she needs there to be some meaning - even if she has to make it herself.


End file.
